In a school or a university, education courses can be taught to students (e.g., in physical classrooms or lecture halls) using different teaching methods (e.g., verbal—typically in the form of a lecture or presentation; visual—typically in the form of demonstration and practice; etc.). Online learning is a method of delivering educational information via the internet instead of in a physical classroom. Entire education courses with structured programs (e.g., including a series of lectures, demonstrations, quizzes and tests, etc.) can be made available online to students. Often, the content of an education course prepared (e.g., by a university instructor or educator) is made available to the students in a single media or format type (e.g., a video) by an online education provider. The students may receive the online education course content (e.g., the video) on a computing device (e.g., desktop, laptop, tablets, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a radio transceiver, a telephone, a mobile computing device, etc.), which may have a variety of technical capabilities (e.g., internet connections, input/output devices, audio or video capabilities, display size, etc.). Furthermore, students may participate in such courses while in any of a variety of study environments or circumstances (e.g., sitting in a room, travelling in a bus, or walking).
While a video format (or other single format such as text or audio) may be a convenient way for the education course preparer or provider to package the course content, some students may benefit more, or learn better from, course content delivered in alternative media formats (e.g., text or audio, etc.), for example, because of their individual learning styles, study environments, or limitations of the computing devices used to access the course content.
However, in an example scenario, an online education course provider may obtain an education course prepared (e.g., by a university instructor or educator) only in a single media format (e.g., as an online video). Students may have no choice other than to take the online education course in the format it was originally prepared (e.g., an online video) even if the student prefers an alternate format or even if the student's study environment or circumstances (e.g., sitting in a room, travelling in a bus, or walking) are not conducive to watching a video.
Consideration is now being given to adapting delivery of online education course content to the capabilities of the client computer used by a student and his or her study environment or preferences.